Part 2
From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?
That is a tough one for me. One of my favorite pieces of music at the moment is “Music for Gymnastics” by Jordan De La Sierra who was a student of Terry Riley. The piece is 24 minutes long and is incredibly beautiful and simple throughout.
“Parallel 1” and “Music for Animals” by Four Tet and Nils Frahm are other examples that I really enjoy. I love this type of music. It really allows you to sink into the piece and essentially just exist with the music and experience this world they’ve created for the listener.
[Read our Nils Frahm interview]
It takes an incredible amount of restraint and patience to pull this off effectively in my opinion. I would love to make something like this but I don’t think I’ve built up the courage to do so yet.
On the flip side, there are a lot of examples of very short ideas that I’m drawn to. “Fragment” by Rival Consoles is an all time favorite of mine since I first heard it. It’s only 1:39 long but it says everything it needs to in that short amount of time.
[Read our Rival Consoles interview]
From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?
I suppose it really depends on the idea that I am working on. For instance it could be something that I want to sit with for a while and the track acts as more of a ‘mood’ rather than a journey so to speak. There are other times where the idea almost wants to be taken for a journey.
I work for a music production academy for my day job and one of the things we tell the students and members is to ‘follow the muse’ and I really try to work like that. Most of the time when I start a track, I have no idea how the end structure will play out. Most of the time, the idea itself will sort of dictate the structure of the song.
Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that’s particularly dear to you, please?
One of my favorite tracks I’ve made is a track called ‘Fond’. I made it one morning after being out with some friends, so I was moving pretty slow and caught in a bit of a hungover fog.
The night before, I had been playing with the LFO tool in Ableton, seeing what I could map it to, how I could use it to create textures, mapping LFOs to other LFOs just having a bit of a science experiment in the studio so to speak. I was fairly new to Ableton at the time so this was all really new and exciting stuff.
The next morning I started playing some chords on my Juno. No thought behind what I was playing, just really improvising and again trying to somewhat ‘capture’ the mood I was in. I found something I liked and I thought why not try to run this through some of the chains I made last night. I then took the Juno, which has an awesome arpeggiator and put the rate as high as it could go and ran it through loads of reverb and delay and it made this really cool textured pad sound that I wove throughout the track.
[Read our feature on the Roland Juno 106]
[Read our feature on the Roland Juno 60]
I ended up making that whole track in just a few hours. I like to work quickly once I’ve found an idea that I’m excited about so I can stay in that headspace. I find when I start an idea, if I let it sit for more than a day or so, it’s bound to lose the initial momentum that it had when it started.
Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you’re making music?
No scientific insights here, but I like to experiment in the studio all the time. I think it all goes back to that curiosity I had when I was younger that I’m still lucky to have today. I do find that a lot of my best work comes when I’m really working on the edge of my knowledge base.
Somewhere in between having some familiarity with what I’m doing and really having no idea at all. I think that is where I really find the ideas that excite me. As I’ve grown as a producer, I’ve obviously expanded my knowledge quite a bit which forces you to become more creative with your experiments in a way.
How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?
I think attention to detail and presence is something I carry over from music to my day to day. Attention to the emotions I am experiencing, being present for experiences.
Sinking into music when I am making it or listening to it is a real meditative experience for me and I think it seeps over to my personal life quite a bit whether it consciously or subconsciously.
Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn’t or wouldn’t in more mundane tasks?
I actually think there are quite a few similarities between making music and making a great cup of coffee or cooking. They’re all just outlets for you to create something for yourself or for others to enjoy.
I just happen to be a horrible cook and a somewhat competent musician so that's where my creative energy goes.
Every time I listen to “Albedo” by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can’t explain?
“The Cause Of Labor Is The Hope Of The Word” parts 1 and 2 by Johann Johannsson.
Every time. I remember listening to that song in my headphones back when I was working in an office job. I started tearing up during the crescendo. When the song was over I sort of snapped out of it and had to look around to make sure no one was looking at me thinking I was having a breakdown haha.
If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?
I’m not quite sure I want to predict or make a wish for the future. Part of what excites me the most about music is being surprised by it.
Maybe from a consumption stand point I’d like to see the return to the album. It seems nowadays everything has moved to singles and pumping out as much music as you can to stay relevant in the neverending algorithms and what not. Artists who spend a long time between albums, getting the quality right over the quantity are disappearing a bit I think ..?
Maybe I’m wrong here but that's just an observation.
